RAND
AND
THE MICMACS.
BY
JEREMIAH S. CLARK, B. A.
CHARLOTTETOWN:
Printed at The Examiner Office, Queen Street.
1899
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousandeight hundred and ninety-nine, by Jeremiah S. Clark, at the Departmentof Agriculture.
BY
Theodore H. Rand, D. C. L.
(Re-printed by Permission.)
Oft did thy spell enthrall me, spite the cost!
Thou brought’st a charmed and fadeless holiday—
Stories and songs of Indian Epic lay—
When’er thy eager step the threshold crost,
Imagination all its plumes uptost
To follow where thy spirit led the way!—
(The sense that thou saw’st God when thou didst pray
I never through the dimming years have lost.)
Fair Minas’ shores thy step did gladden, too!
Thou charm’dst great Glooscap from the unlettered past,
And told’st his story to the listener nigh’st;
Ay, lover of song, of learned lore and vast,
Thou lov’dst the Indian with a love so true,
In his sweet tongue thou gavest him the Christ.
D. D., L.L. D., D. C. L.
Stand thou a hero! brave, strong, sweet-souled Rand,
Firm on thy high pedestal through all time.
Thy God who cheered thee on, and held thy hand,
Preserves from dread oblivion thy memory sublime.
What, though no sculptured block adorned the spot
Where they had laid thy worn-out shroud away,
Until a daughter’s toil memorial brought!
Within a thousand strengthened hearts thy visage beams to-day.
Mild was thy manly spirit! as a child
Among his playmates thou couldst laugh and sing;
Yet, through the greatest hardships on the wild,
Thou didst the